A rural village was fortunate if there was a printer in its midst, particularly if the printer had the temerity and energy to print a newspaper. The printer was fortunate if he gained enough subscribers to support the paper. He was particularly lucky if at least some of his subscribers paid in cash.

The bargaining instinct was strong in country settings. Advertisers and subscribers alike were prone to bring the printer garden or orchard, products a chicken or maple trees in exchange for notices of a cow for sale, a horse that had strayed, a new arrival of merchandise at the store or a new line of printed cottons at the draper's. A bushel of apples, perhaps, was good for a six-month's subscription to the weekly newspaper, which carried advertisements on all four pages (including the front page), legislative reports, the proceedings of Congress, poetry, anecdotes, letters from abroad and month-old "news" and editorials reprinted from distant and foreign papers.

Whether it was putting together a newspaper or printing broadsides and handbills, the printer set the type and well-worn woodcuts by hand. He then locked the form with wooden quoins, placed it upon the bed, applied ink with a leather tampion, laid down a sheet of paper, and pulled the big handle on the press. The printed sheet was then hung to dry.

The printer's equipment consists of a mid 19th-century Washington type press, several cases of old typefaces and woodcuts, a proof press and many other early items gathered from area print shops.

The two parts of the Printing Office were once separate shops along the main street of Caledonia, N.Y. They were moved in 1850, and joined to a larger house. There, one served as the dining room and the other as the kitchen. The Greek Revival front portion dates from about 1835; the rear section is older, c.1820.

In 2002, the Printing Office was converted to that of an abolitionist newspaper, patterned after the American Citizen, first published in Warsaw and Perry, N.Y. On select weekends, visitors can witness a dramatic 1841 encounter between escaped slave and abolitionist William Wells Brown and a rural printer sympathetic to his cause as the two discuss whether the printer will publish Brown's memoirs.